Page 32 of Last Night with the Duke
“However, it’s quite possible someone could believe that theprankwas the reason for a young lady’s lack of marriageable prospects.”
“You have no problem laying what you believe on the line, do you, Miss Swift?”
“I’ve found it’s always easier to be blunt about someone else’s misfortunes rather than delving into one’s own.”
“That’s true. The wager happened so long ago, it’s maddening that it’s circulating once again. Of all the scandals London has seen in the past few years, I don’t know why Miss Honora Truth decided to resurrect this one from the ashes of the past.”
“Of course you do,” Esmeralda said confidently. “Your sisters entering the marriage mart must have made it an easy choice for her. She wanted to make a name for herself in the gossip columns, and it’s worked.”
“If the writer is a she. I have my doubts about that. I can’t help but think Miss Truth is actually a man at the publishing company hiding behind a woman’s name. But no matter the gender, if the wager hadn’t been brought to light again, my sisters wouldn’t now be at someone’s mercy.” He blew out an audible breath. “It’s not like any of the young ladies were actually harmed.”
“But they were,” she countered earnestly.
“How? Not one lady was touched by any of us.”
“Not by your hands, but all of them were touched by the scandal. They put their reputations at risk and went to meet a secret admirer—a stranger. Surely you understand how improper it was for them to do that. After all, wasn’t that the purpose of the prank? Besides, you really don’t know how many of the ladies you might have harmed in some way, do you?”
Frustration clouded his eyes again. “I don’t know anything for sure, Miss Swift,” he argued. “But by the saints, why should meeting a secret admirer cause a young lady’s reputation to be ruined if there never was an admirer to meet?”
“It could be that some gentlemen might have thought that because the ladies went to meet a secret admirer, they could be tempted to do so again, or maybe that they had actually done it before. It could have caused some beaus to second-guess the young ladies’ virtue. You can’t deny that they put it all at risk by being willing to meet a man, an unknown man, in secret.”
“I will concede that it’s a good possibility we did more damage than any of us realized at the time or since.”
“And I will concede that getting all twelve young ladies to fall for the same prank at the same time was quite a feat that hadn’t been done before, nor has it since.”
“No one else has been as foolish as we were at the time.”
“I never heard. How did the story manage to get in all the gossip columns?”
“It was our own fault. No one was to ever know. We’d done other questionable things and hadn’t been caught.”
“I’m sure.”
A grunted laugh passed his lips. “Yes. That would surprise no one. I’ve never pretended to be a saint.”
She smiled. “It would have done you no good to have done so. How did the prank become public knowledge?”
His eyes took on a faraway quality, and she could see he was remembering back to that time all those years ago.
“After the secret admirer letters went out, we each had our own hiding place where we could watch to see how many young ladies had come to meet us. The one who had the most ladies show up would win the wager. But believe me the money wasn’t important. We all had such a desire to best the other no matter what we were doing. It was having the right to boasting that fueled us. And that was our downfall.”
“So you went around bragging about what you’d done?”
“No,” he said adamantly. “Not to others. As I said, no one was to know but us. We never talked about our wagers with anyone else. We usually met in the reading room at White’s as it’s seldom used in the wee hours of the morning. Deep in our brandy bottles as we were that night, we didn’t check to make sure the room was empty. As fate would have it, Mr. Howard Drayton had fallen asleep in one of the chairs facing the fire. We didn’t see him. After we’d all had a good laugh about the outcome, Drayton decided to make himself known to us. He said he wouldn’t expose what we’d done if we’d each pay him a tidy sum each month to keep his gambling pockets plump. You can imagine how we felt about that.”
“You didn’t pay him?
“Hell no.” He paused and searched her eyes. When he saw no censure for swearing, he continued. “In hindsight, perhaps we should have given in to his demands, but it went against our nature to be intimidated to that point. We knew it would do no good to threaten him because he had the prince’s ear.”
“I don’t recognize his name. Where is he now? Is it possible he is behind this?”
“Not unless he is doing it from the grave. He was killed in a duel about three years ago. Accused of cheating at cards. But in any case, for now at least, I will stand by my original plan not to tell my sisters about the rumor and wait for them to come to me.”
“As you wish.”
“I’ll be over each evening to escort the three of you to the parties, remain there with you, and then I’ll see you home each night.”
“Very well,” she said, knowing she had no more arguments to make. “We shall be ready.”
